Yet another teacher has left BASIS and parents are in the dark

[Anonymous]

Charters don't cherrypick and nobody suggested they should.

That's an entirely different discussion to what is being discussed here: parents choosing schools that are a bad fit for their child and then blaming the school rather than choosing a school that's a better fit.

For example YY tells families up front that their expectation is chinese immersion. So don't pick it if you don't want chinese immersion. Similarly, Basis tells families up front that they have a very demanding academic curriculum that expects a ton of hard work from students. So if that's not a good fit for your child, don't pick it.

You don't order spaghetti at a restaurant and then complain that it's not a steak. It's not the spaghetti's fault, it's your own fault.

[Anonymous]

Schools like Yu Ying (which for some strange reason keeps getting brought up) must comply with all aspects of IDEA and make their programs accessible to all children. Yu Ying serves all levels of special education students and some receive limited Chinese because of their disabilities. They have had to modify their curriculum to meet student needs--NOT vice versa!! If a child is accepted to BASIS, then BASIS MUST meet that child's needs based on the individual disability, unless the whole IEP team AND OSSE deems it necessary to send the child to a private placement. WHICH HARDLY EVER HAPPENS.
Just because BASIS would like all of its students to come in ready for the most advanced learning does not make it likely that that is what they're going to get. Don't you think every school wishes this would be so??? BASIS elitists---you are a PUBLIC School so you need to serve who you get. And get over the idea that somehow you're different than everyone else.

[Anonymous]

I would bet you most if not all of the parents at Yu Ying whose kids need a modified curriculum did not know that Chinese immersion was a bad fit for their kid when they first sent them .

To purposely send your kid to a school knowing that it's a bad fit b/c public schools have to educate all, it's your right, etc... And then complaining about it....

Well, you are an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's damned if you do and damned if you don't isn't it?Remember the hue and cry when someone complained that Yu Ying has a non-immersion track for their students who are not at grade level in English.

That's right - it ends up not being fair to the rest of the students.

I thought the track was for kids who could not learn Chinese, and that the two white kids who got put on that track pulled out of YY and two black kids stayed or something and then it all blew up. If you figure out your kid has an LD that means they cannot learn a foriegn language (it does exist) do you stay at YY?

[Anonymous]

If a school is a bad fit, why stay?

And with your "must educate all" argument, how do you figure that "not all" are being educated? Nobody is being denied a choice in DC.

Basis accepts all who make it through the lottery. But not everyone is going to be a good fit. Some kids might fail. That's the facts of life, and that's the choice that parents need to consider. They could stay and keep failing, that's their choice. Nobody is making them do anything, nobody is turning them away, and nobody is denying anyone an education.

You keep returning to the same bogus strawmen in circular argument without acknowledging these facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's damned if you do and damned if you don't isn't it?Remember the hue and cry when someone complained that Yu Ying has a non-immersion track for their students who are not at grade level in English.

That's right - it ends up not being fair to the rest of the students.

I thought the track was for kids who could not learn Chinese, and that the two white kids who got put on that track pulled out of YY and two black kids stayed or something and then it all blew up. If you figure out your kid has an LD that means they cannot learn a foriegn language (it does exist) do you stay at YY?

It makes as (little) sense as having a kid with a learning disability, but who can learn foreign language and wants to learn Chinese, so you send him to Mundo Verde and demand they teach him Chinese instead of Spanish. Basically that's what it seems like the PP keeps trying to suggest - that an IEP means you have carte blanche, to demand whatever curriculum is "appropriate" even if it's the total opposite of the school's curriculum, and that there's already another school that is a better fit and is perfectly well suited to meet your needs far more effectively. That's where the process (and this discussion) is fundamentally broken.

[Anonymous]

I did not mean that charters cherry-pick. I was replying to the poster who believed Yu Ying had an advantage over Basis, and could choose their students. No school can, and no school does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's damned if you do and damned if you don't isn't it?Remember the hue and cry when someone complained that Yu Ying has a non-immersion track for their students who are not at grade level in English.

That's right - it ends up not being fair to the rest of the students.

I thought the track was for kids who could not learn Chinese, and that the two white kids who got put on that track pulled out of YY and two black kids stayed or something and then it all blew up. If you figure out your kid has an LD that means they cannot learn a foriegn language (it does exist) do you stay at YY?

No, people leave from my experience and I'm a YY parent. Parents generally want what is best for their kid.

[Anonymous]

From my experience there are parents who are very hard headed, who suffer from magical thinking, or who are totally clueless (or any combination of these) - who think they know what's best for their kid and keep plowing onward even though it's a horrible fit for their child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From my experience there are parents who are very hard headed, who suffer from magical thinking, or who are totally clueless (or any combination of these) - who think they know what's best for their kid and keep plowing onward even though it's a horrible fit for their child.

Upper grades, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In DCPS, social promotion is mandatory by law except in a few grades. I don't think that is the law for charters. And it cannot be for BASIS.

BASIS was granted a charter that included provisions that ALL students had to take comprehensive exams at the end of the year from 6th-8th grade. If they fail them at the end of the year, they retake them in the fall. If they fail again, they have a choice: repeat the year or leave the school. That means mandatory social promotion for anyone is out. Including ELL students.

PLEASE tell me that an IEP can only require that students take the comprehensive exams in a DIFFERENT way - like with more time, small room, minimal distractions, etc. DON'T tell me that IDEA requires that IEP students at BASIS be given DIFFERENT comprehensive exams.

For the DCCAS they give IEP students scribes, they give extra time, they give small rooms, minimal distractions. They do not give a different DCCAS.

Why should the rules for the BASIS comps, where the outcome for failure is permitted by the charter granted to them, as applied to IEP students, not be the same?

Same tests, taken under different circumstances. Not different tests. That would make their charter re comps meaningless.

I truly believe that a lot of the people that post in here (particularly those against BASIS) do want social promotion, they need it. The idea that people, even here in DC, might finally realize that there is a causal relationship between doing well in school and having a fulfilling life, frightens them. They sure prefer the status quo do that they can keep complaining about something.

[Anonymous]

There are folks who oppose charters, because they draw students away from the public school system, and as such they look for anything they can latch on to in order to try and attack charters - in this case it seems to be IDEA.

And then, they make comments suggesting things like "an accelerated STEM school goes against IDEA" as well as bringing up immersion schools like Yu Ying.

But here's the thing: IDEA is only about modifying and changing things for special needs students - NOT the rest of the students - and even there, it's only to meet the minimum educational requirements of the jurisdiction for those special needs students. IDEA can't be used as a club to force schools to change the rest of their model or curriculum.

So, it doesn't matter if it's an immersion school for ancient Uzbek language or if they teach Advanced Genomics in 5th grade - none of that is relevant to IDEA, as under IDEA, the school only has to make the basic "general education" curriculum per the state standard accessible to special needs students.

IDEA should not have purview over the rest of the school, nor should it have purview over those students who are not special needs. It doesn't matter what a school like Basis or Yu Ying is, where it comes to the rest of the picture beyond the minimum standards. Yu Ying for example would be well within its rights to put special needs students in a class with no Chinese at all - because Chinese is outside of the minimum jurisdictional educational standard. Basis could also plow forward with an accelerated program without having any special needs students because it's also outside the minimum educational standard. They would only have to meet the minimum with special needs students.

As such, unless a special needs family knows for sure that the school will (voluntarily on their part, because they don't have to) offer to work with special needs students on any of the specialized or accelerated curriculum beyond the minimum standard (because IDEA only requires them to address the minimum standard) then I think it may be at best be a crap shoot, or at worst be a waste of time, to seek out a specialized charter with a special needs student expecting accommodations where it comes to those specializations outside the minimum standard - which makes one wonder what the point of bothering even was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are folks who oppose charters, because they draw students away from the public school system, and as such they look for anything they can latch on to in order to try and attack charters - in this case it seems to be IDEA.

And then, they make comments suggesting things like "an accelerated STEM school goes against IDEA" as well as bringing up immersion schools like Yu Ying.

But here's the thing: IDEA is only about modifying and changing things for special needs students - NOT the rest of the students - and even there, it's only to meet the minimum educational requirements of the jurisdiction for those special needs students. IDEA can't be used as a club to force schools to change the rest of their model or curriculum.

So, it doesn't matter if it's an immersion school for ancient Uzbek language or if they teach Advanced Genomics in 5th grade - none of that is relevant to IDEA, as under IDEA, the school only has to make the basic "general education" curriculum per the state standard accessible to special needs students.

IDEA should not have purview over the rest of the school, nor should it have purview over those students who are not special needs. It doesn't matter what a school like Basis or Yu Ying is, where it comes to the rest of the picture beyond the minimum standards. Yu Ying for example would be well within its rights to put special needs students in a class with no Chinese at all - because Chinese is outside of the minimum jurisdictional educational standard. Basis could also plow forward with an accelerated program without having any special needs students because it's also outside the minimum educational standard. They would only have to meet the minimum with special needs students.

As such, unless a special needs family knows for sure that the school will (voluntarily on their part, because they don't have to) offer to work with special needs students on any of the specialized or accelerated curriculum beyond the minimum standard (because IDEA only requires them to address the minimum standard) then I think it may be at best be a crap shoot, or at worst be a waste of time, to seek out a specialized charter with a special needs student expecting accommodations where it comes to those specializations outside the minimum standard - which makes one wonder what the point of bothering even was.

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